


Unable to Enter My Heart (I Prefer My Dreams)

by farrawayfromthere



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, F/F, Slow Burn, cm robbed us of momily so it’s time to make amends, come for the domestic jemily dreams stay for the angst and endless pining, there will be smut but first there will be tears
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-22
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-14 09:27:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 18,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28918320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/farrawayfromthere/pseuds/farrawayfromthere
Summary: Set after “Children of the Dark.”After briefly considering adopting Carrie Ortiz following her family’s murders, Emily begins having dreams about raising kids with JJ.JJ knows Emily has some thick walls up; they don’t phase her.totally AU after 3x04
Relationships: Jennifer "JJ" Jareau/Emily Prentiss
Comments: 55
Kudos: 110





	1. i dreamed you, i wished for your existence

Emily’s chest aches dully, and it’s the kind of ache that’s so quiet, so persistent, it could almost be imagined. 

If she just focuses on the coolness of the jet window against the side of her forehead, the smell of JJ’s perfume wafting over from the seat in front of her, she might just convince herself that the ache is nothing. Just nagging memories of lives she’s lived that she likes to think she no longer really needs to care about. No need to think about old hurts when enough new ones burn themselves into her brain every day at the BAU.

These are the kinda days when they see loving parents brutalized, dead little boys laid out on dinosaur bedspreads, and big sisters that aren’t as big as they pretend to be under the weight of their survivor’s guilt. 

So JJ’s doing that thing they all do at the end of a day like this.

She’s looking out the window, escaping for a while.

Below them are miles of thick tufts of dark clouds, hiding the earth and all its misery. JJ’s fingers touch her mouth absently, not quite covering her tired frown. 

If Carrie Ortiz hadn’t had family that wanted to take her in, Emily thinks, glancing away from JJ and back outside, she would’ve been happy to take some of that weight from those thin shoulders. 

How had that teenage girl, in all her agony, recognized the depth of the pain carried by the hand that had murdered her little brother, helped murder her parents? 

The humanity of those minutes in the interrogation room had stunned Emily, uncovered buried wants. After, when she and Carrie were hugging and Emily could feel the teenager’s sobs against her chest, she’d almost said the words:

Give some of that weight to me kiddo. Give it to me. I can take it, take care of you. 

JJ’s saying something about how the girl’s family will take good care of her. 

Emily’s nodding.

I need to be able to remember that I’m human, she’d told Hotch. 

And it had come out in that exasperated, sort of offhand way that she’s gotten really good at over the years. She’s learned that people only casually interested in what’s going on inside of you tend to stop asking questions if you just act annoyed enough, if you walk out with your head held high enough.

She had been honest with him though. Honest with herself, for once, out loud. She was still working through what that honesty really meant.

“I think it’s a good idea.”

Emily focuses on JJ again, tilts her head a little.

JJ’s half-smiling now, eyebrows a little furrowed as she says the words that maybe change everything. 

“You. Kids. I can see it.”

She won’t let go of Emily’s gaze and God, don’t her eyes just take up half of her face?

“Yeah,” Emily asks, quiet, soft, hating it.

JJ blinks, then closes her eyes for a longer moment as though she’s seeing it, Emily showering a kid with love, right there in her mind’s eye. 

She opens them and smiles a small smile, nods.

“Yeah.”

Emily half-grins at her and looks back out the window. 

She can feel JJ’s gaze, searching, asking a million silent questions she’ll never ask out loud. Curious, genuine, warm. 

In truth, Emily doesn’t really want those huge blue eyes to ever stop trying to see her. She doesn’t linger on why she can’t bring herself to scare JJ off. 

She lays her head against the glass and doesn’t realize she’s falling asleep until she’s dreaming impossible things.

Inside the house, there’s a little boy crying. She can hear him through the open window.

Emily’s heart shudders with fear. Not him, not him. She runs up the front porch steps and breaks down the front door with her shoulder, ignoring a pain so real she can taste it on her tongue. 

His cries are coming from the kitchen. 

Emily grasps for her gun as she pads down the entrance hallway. The kitchen awaits her to the right at the end of the hallway, obscured from her view. 

Her hands meet empty air… no gun. 

“What the hell was that noise,” a voice calls from somewhere ahead of her, “Em are you alright?” Then, in a gentler voice, “Hold still kiddo.”

Emily’s in the doorway, and a woman with long blonde hair is dabbing antiseptic onto the little boy’s badly skinned knee. His chin is tucked into his chest, shaggy black hair falling into his face, hiding it from view. His whimpers dig into Emily’s heart, squeeze it tight.

“I know,” the woman murmurs, and Emily doesn’t think about how clearly she can hear the words despite being so far away. She doesn’t think about how she doesn’t remember getting off the plane or driving home.

Home. She’s home.

“Almost done baby. There.”

The blonde woman gets up and moves over to the sink to wash her hands.

Emily approaches the little boy, laying a gentle hand on his arm.

He looks up and she stifles a gasp. His eyes are wide and blue and full of tears. She searches his face and realizes, with a little tremor, that it’s her own, small and boyish. Her nose and jaw and mouth. Everything is hers, save for the eyes…. 

“You okay,” she asks him, surprised she can manage the words.

He wipes at his face with the back of his hand and sighs, that heavy sigh little kids do when they‘ve spent all their tears. 

Emily reaches out to wipe away a stray tear and rubs his cheek with her thumb. He nuzzles into her hand and her heart is swelling, filling her whole chest.

“I fell.”

“You fell?”

“Hard,” he says, not looking at her, trying to keep the emotion from his voice.

How had this child already learned to shove down his own pain?

“I’m sorry,” she says.

He sniffles and shakes his head.

“It’s nap time,” says a voice behind her, “You’ll feel better afterwards baby, come on.” 

The woman is standing next to her, and Emily still hasn’t seen her face. She can’t tear her eyes away from the boy… her boy.

“My son,” Emily says, as though she’s never said the words before.

“Yeah, babe it’s time for your son to take a nap, rest his leg a little after his tree climbing experiment,” the woman beside her says.

“I made it all the way to the top!”

“Yes you did,” says the woman, “But I don’t wanna let you keep climbing trees if you’re gonna get distracted coming down on the last branch and hurt your leg!”

“You distracted me!”

“I know, and I’m sorry for cheering.”

The boy scowls.

“Can mommy carry me?” 

He stretches out his hands to Emily. And she gathers him up in her arms without hesitation.

Emily turns, her son in her arms, and faces the woman.

It’s a shock to realize that her son has JJ’s eyes. To see JJ’s eyes looking at her like that. Full of mirth and adoration. 

“JJ,” Emily breathes. 

“You’re getting way too heavy for us buddy,” JJ says, eyes not leaving Emily’s, “You’re lucky your mom loves you so much.” 

“He’s not that heavy,” Emily protests. 

“Yeah, yeah Wonder Woman.”

They take her son, their son, to his room, laying him down on a bedspread covered in rocket ships. 

He’s already sleeping.

Emily never wants to stop looking at him, but JJ’s tugging at her wrist. 

“Come on,” JJ whispers, “he’ll be out for about half an….”

Emily’s expression must be terrible because JJ stops mid-sentence.

Her hands, soft as anything, are cupping Emily’s face, and Emily’s startled to feel hot tears running down her cheeks.

“What’s wrong Em,” JJ whispers.

Emily’s throat is tightening, drawing a helpless exhale from her. 

“This isn’t real,” she says, “This can’t be real.”

JJ’s leaning forward, looking loving, troubled, “What are you talking about?”

“I don’t… remember having a baby. I don’t remember you….”

“They say you forget so you’ll want to have more,” the younger woman says, a glimmer of humor amidst the concern, “Are you trying to tell me something?”

Emily’s eyes flutter shut, feeling JJs breath wash over her lips.

“No,” she whispers, “You’re not real.”

JJ brushes her lips against the crook between Emily’s neck and shoulder. Emily gasps. She watches JJ pull away, one eyebrow raised mischievously.

“Real enough for you?”

Emily turns to look at their son, sleeping peacefully.

“He’s ours,” she says, wonderingly.

“Emily…,” JJ says, eyes asking a million questions even now, when they have a son together. When they must’ve been together for years and years. 

It’s a relief to know that the younger woman never stopped trying to get to know her. 

Then she’s letting herself be pulled out of their son’s room, and pushed up against the wall of the hallway. JJ’s hands are skimming up her sides, coming to rest on her waist. She’s kissing up Emily’s neck again, and Emily sighs. 

“Emily,” JJ murmurs.

“What’s his name,” she says then bites back a groan as JJ nips at the pulse point under her neck. The smell of her perfume surrounds her, dancing up her face.

“Emily.”

“What,” she asks, confused, then she really does groan when JJ soothes the bite with her tongue. Her hands finally reach up to bury themselves in JJ’s hair, pulling the younger woman flush against her.

“I said….Prentiss!”

Emily wakes up to JJ’s voice, a sleep hoarse, worried whisper.

The inside of the jet is dim, the team all asleep in their seats. JJ is kneeling in front of her, one hand burning where it rests lightly on her knee. 

“You were having a bad dream,” she says gently, holding out a tissue to her.

Emily takes it, dimly aware of the tears on her cheeks.

“JJ,” she exhales, dabbing at her cheeks.

“It’s okay,” JJ says, “Nobody’s awake.”

Emily can’t stop staring at her, even as her eyes burn and her vision blurs again. JJ looks back at her, evenly. Her perfume, even at the end of the day, sweetens the air Emily’s now having trouble taking in. 

What the fuck was that?!

She ducks her chin into her chest, letting her hair shield her from JJ’s gaze. A hand squeezes hers, briefly, and then the warmth on her knee disappears. She feels rather than sees JJ return to her seat. 

Emily looks out the window, and as she begins drifting off again, alone, she sees the gray of dawn edging up the horizon. 

The dual memories of JJ’s real, comforting touch and the dream JJ’s hands digging into the small of her back, the dream JJ’s mouth ghosting over her clavicles swirl around behind her eyes. In the dream, she’d had a son. Their son. Emily startles at the realization that she’s allowed herself to fall deeply in love with an imaginary child. She wants him, she wants….

She glances over at JJ, curled up in her seat with one of the blankets they keep on the jet draped over her.

If she ignores it, she thinks wearily, maybe she can still pretend that the ache in her chest, now stinging and raw, isn’t really there at all. 

Emily can do that. She’s good at pretending.


	2. splenda, the magic ingredient

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Emily is really good at denial.

In her latest dream, they have a girl.

She’s small and almost too bright to look at, all blonde, dark eyed peals of laughter from Emily’s lap. She can’t be more than a year old. 

They’re in a car, and all three of them can’t stop laughing, but JJ’s getting exasperated.

“Hold her still!”

“I’m sorry,” Emily gasps from the passenger seat, unable to stop herself from laughing long enough to be helpful. 

JJ manages to smear a little bit of baby sunscreen on the tip of the girl’s left ear before she’s wriggling away and shrieking with laughter. 

Emily catches sight of JJ’s expression behind her huge blue-lense sunglasses, raised to the ceiling of the car in faux torture, and sobers. 

“Okay kiddo, your mama isn’t messing around. Let’s be serious here.”

Incredibly, the baby listens, seeming to understand that her co-conspirator has surrendered to the authorities. JJ shakes her head and chuckles as she dabs sunscreen onto the baby’s other ear, and carefully rubs it onto her rosy cheeks.

“Unbelievable,” she mutters, leaning back in the driver’s seat to look at them. 

“What?”

“This cuteness is criminal.”

“You gonna take us in for it,” Emily asks, placing a little sun hat over the girl’s soft blonde locks. 

“I’m debating it.”

“You hear that,” Emily says, and the baby leans back into her chest, “We’ve got the FBI on our backs.” 

Before Emily knows it, the three of them are at the edge of the lapping sea, clear and cool. They each are holding one of the baby’s chubby fists as she takes a toddling step in. She looks up at both of them in amazement and shrieks again when a tiny wave washes over their bare feet. 

Emily and JJ meet eyes, and their gazes are both a little shiny. Then Emily really sees JJ and mouth goes more than a little dry 

JJ’s wearing a one piece gingham bathing suit that does nothing to obscure the outline of her abs and a pair of jean shorts that have Emily thinking that women’s legs aren’t appreciated enough in all the fine art institutions in Europe. 

As JJ bends down to scoop the little girl into her arms, nuzzling into her cheek, Emily notices that her swimsuit is backless. She resists the urge to reach out and trace the smooth skin over JJ’s spine with her the tips of her fingers.

A knowing look comes over JJ when she notices. 

Slowly, slowly, she turns her back to Emily, their baby making sounds of protest at being taken away from the water. Emily yearns to reach out, to touch, but finds her hand faltering in the air just before she can. 

There’s a glimmer of confusion as Emily tries to rationalize this. They have a baby together, right? So surely they’ve….

But as soon as she’s begun to wonder if under her own black one-piece she’ll really find a web of silvery stretch marks across her belly, she’s marveling at the idea that she’s forgotten which one of them carried this beautiful baby. Or did they adopt?

Then they’re sprawled over a large beach towel. The girl sits between them patting some sand at the edge of the towel, and delighting in how it keeps its shape. 

“You’re gonna burn,” JJ chides, scooting herself around their kid and behind Emily, her chest nearly touching Emily’s back, a tube of sunscreen in hand. 

“Mama,” the child says, raising a fistful of damp sand for Emily and JJ to see.

“I see it,” Emily says, smiling even as more and more questions begin to press in on her mind.

The baby babbles something back and pats the sand in her hand back into the ground, immediately reabsorbed.

“Oh man bathtime after all this sand is gonna be an experience,” JJ says.

Their little girl has gotten another fistful of sand and is sprinkling it over her arms, enraptured at the sight, as though it’s snow. 

Emily wishes she could remember the baby’s name, and just as she’s about to ask JJ for it, JJ’s kneading sunscreen onto the back of her neck. 

Emily unthinkingly rests her hands on JJ’s legs. A hot jolt runs through her, making her breath come a little faster, and mixing a deep warmth with the uneasiness of her growing confusion.

The world around them grows hazy, the sun too hot, its glare off the water too bright. 

JJ’s thumbs press into a tense spot between her shoulder blades and Emily’s eyes flutter shut.

“W-ow,” Emily hears herself say.

“Cara mia,” JJ says lowly, then repeats the sentiment in Spanish, French, Arabic. 

And since when does JJ speak any of those languages?

Emily feels panic inch up her throat.

“JJ,” she says, “I can’t remember her name.”

“Her name?”

“The baby’s….”

“What baby,” JJ asks, and when Emily turns, their lips are just barely apart. She feels drunk as JJ closes the distance between them.

The sounds of ambulance sirens are deafening.

Emily jolts awake, hearing her own cry of surprise echo in the apartment around her. 

She can still see the empty space on the beach towel where their baby had last been, feel the echo of JJ’s palms digging into her upper back. 

The darkness of the apartment feels cool in contrast to the brightness of the dream, but it does nothing to soothe the growing tightness in her chest.

She grabs a pillow and buries her face in it with a frustrated groan. Placing it aside, she eases herself out of bed and into the kitchen.

She drains a glass of cold water then leans against one of the counters. It’s three am and she rubs the sleep from her eyes. She knows the circles under them will be an even deeper shade of purple in the morning. Thank heavens for concealer.

It’s the fifth night in a row she’s had some variation of the dream, and while aspects of it differ, such as it’s setting or the sex or age of the child in it, the heart of her most recent nighttime torment is always the same:

She has a kid whose name she can never remember. 

The kid’s other parent is JJ. They’re together and boy does it show.

Emily always awakens before anything happens that might make it truly impossible to look JJ in the eyes over coffee in the mornings. Hoorah.

Yet, this comforting fact doesn’t stop her from feeling the desperate need to plunge herself into an ice bath each time something like being flashed with the whole of JJ’s bare, smooth, soft-looking back is delivered to her by her subconscious. 

Emily wrenches open the fridge and leans back into it. 

She curses the part of her subconscious that latched onto JJ being the first person to validate her well-buried desire to be somebody’s mom. Apparently, that fact alone was enough for her brain to incorporate the blonde into its nightly domestic fantasies.

Ambulance sirens again, and Emily feels the tension rising hot to her cheeks. She tilts her head up to look at the ceiling, inhaling and exhaling. 

She can’t go on like this; she’ll explode.

She’s kept plenty of secrets before, she’s professionally good at it...but this? She’s never had to deal with something like this before… something so tender and utterly private consuming all her mental energy as soon as she’s alone.

Well she has, she thinks solemnly, but back then she had Matthew. Now….

If she doesn’t get these feelings out somehow, she knows she’ll do something truly stupid... something like beginning to believe that she’s actually attracted to JJ. 

As things currently stand, she’s already tried to subtly avoid situations where she might be left alone with the Media Liaison. She doesn’t think JJ has noticed. She also doesn’t know if she would act differently if she had. 

She eyes one of the kitchen drawers and pulls out an old bound notebook partially filled with monthly expenses and scribbled down phone numbers. Rifling around, she finds a pen, and turns to a new page. 

She writes about her dreams for what feels like an hour, leaning her elbows on the kitchen counter. Flashes of children she’ll never see again tighten her throat, and her stomach clenches at memories of the dream JJ’s touch. 

When she finally goes back to sleep atop of her bed covers, the notebook beside her limp hand, the couple hours left before dawn are mercifully dreamless.

She almost feels human when she walks into the BAU that morning. 

Reid’s in the break room, mixing about ten packets of raw sugar into two black coffees. Morgan leans against the counter, watching him with a half-bemused smirk, sipping from his own cup. 

Both men look up at Emily’s entrance, but only Morgan raises his cup in greeting.

She raises her eyebrows in question at Reid, and Morgan shrugs. 

“You looking to make your heart explode,” she asks as she pours herself a cup of the strong brew. 

“It’s for Garcia,” Reid says, not looking up, “I’m gonna attempt to bribe her and see if she’ll teach me the super secret hacks for this amazing new….”

“Let Prentiss have her coffee first man,” Morgan says with a chuckle, “Besides, that’s not how Garcia likes it. That’s how you like it. Disgusting.” 

“And you’ve just been standing there watching me make it without saying anything?”

“I wanted to see how a boy-genius makes coffee for a lady.”

Emily puts a lid on her coffee; a healthy amount of cream and a single Splenda. 

“Well I don’t want to just throw it away,” Reid mutters.

“Is JJ here,” Emily asks.

“Yeah she’s in her office, prepping today’s—okay.”

She snatches the extra coffee out of his hand before he even finishes speaking; She’s done avoiding JJ because of her wacky subconscious. 

“How do you know she’ll like it,” Reid asks.

“She won’t,” Emily says, pouring some creamer into his drink, and already dreading the gnarly sugar crash she’ll no doubt be enduring in a couple hours, “I’ll drink yours. She’ll drink mine.”

She leaves them bickering and heads to the Media Liason’s office. It’s empty when she gets there, but the floor lamps are on, bathing everything in a soft yellow glow. It’s in great contrast to the harsh fluorescent whiteness of the rest of the BAU. 

She enters the office and places the coffee amidst the mountains of files on JJ’s desk, her body relaxing in the dim environment, and the lingering smell of JJ’s perfume.

“Emily?”

JJ’s standing in the doorway, a look of blank surprise on her face as she dries her hands with a paper towel. 

“I brought you coffee,” Emily says, holding up the cup. 

JJ’s quickly walking toward her. 

It happens so fast that Emily’s breath catches in her throat. She momentarily forgets herself. 

As JJ slips through the narrow space between Emily and the wall of her office to get around to her desk, their bodies brush, JJ’s front against Emily’s back, one of her hands briefly touching Emily’s hip as she passes. 

A flush rises up Emily’s chest, neck, and up to her cheeks. 

Her lips part, the smile dropping off her face as she looks down at JJ’s hands as they surreptitiously covers a bundle of papers with another manilla envelope. She catches sight of the bolded words ‘APPLICATION REQUIREMENTS’ before meeting JJ’s eyes.

The glint of panic in them is almost enough to distract Emily from the one thought repeating itself over and over again in her head:

Oh God, she’s beautiful. She’s beautiful. She’s even more beautiful than she is in your dreams. Oh God.

JJ looks like she’s grasping for something to say, but Emily doesn’t give her a chance.

She steps away from the desk, a small smile she hopes reaches her eyes on her face. 

“Hope it tastes alright, blame it on Reid if it doesn’t. See you at the briefing.”

Then she’s out the door, mindlessly draining nearly half of Reid’s hot bittersweet coffee in one gulp. She hopes she’ll be able to still her racing thoughts before then. 

She looks down at the cup in her hand as she settles in her desk chair, heart pounding.

Dream on, she thinks grimly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


	3. mothers and sons of tucson

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the team is introduced to a woman on a mission with eyes for Emily, and Emily and JJ work some things out under the Arizona sun.
> 
> tw: racism

Fifteen minutes later, JJ surprises the rest of the team by entering the conference room with a pretty stranger.

Emily straightens in her chair, and out of the corner of her eye sees Morgan and Reid do the same.

The woman beside JJ is a few inches shorter than her, with light brown skin and thick dark brown hair that she holds up with a gold bear clip. She’s got intelligent eyes.

When Emily meets the woman’s gaze for the first time, she feels herself held by it for a moment longer than she expects. 

The corner of the woman’s mouth rises infinitesimally and in that moment, Emily feels the caffeine, copious amount of sugar in Reid’s coffee, and the adrenaline from earlier in JJ’s office combine and give rise to the beginnings of a headache she knows she’ll be wrestling with all day. 

“Good morning everyone,” JJ says, “This is Special Agent Tereza Gonzalez.”

Gonzalez raises a hand in greeting.

“She brought this case to my attention, and,” here JJ pauses for just a moment, “it is my recommendation that she be fully involved in our investigation.”

JJ meets Hotch’s curious gaze steadily until he turns to Gonzalez and nods. 

There’s a flicker of something like victory in JJ’s expression which she quickly covers over with neutral attentiveness. 

The intrigue of it dulls the ache in Emily’s temples even as JJ sits in the empty chair beside hers. 

“Good morning,” Gonzalez begins in a pleasant, even voice.

“Each year, about five hundred people die attempting to immigrate to the United States without documents through the U.S-Mexico border,” she says with posture so perfect it’s almost intimidating. 

Emily wonders if the rest of the team is also profiling the agent. 

Confident, competent. 

“In the last couple decades,” she continues, “There has been a marked increase in the number of migrants the border patrol believe are being murdered by vigilantes.”

“Vigilantes,” Reid asks.

“People who believe it is their duty to protect America from those they believe to be invaders,” Gonzalez says, “By any means necessary.”

She pauses, and something dark flashes across her expression. 

Angry, Emily thinks. 

“I am an emergency medical doctor by education,” she says, and it takes them all a little by surprise. 

Save for the faint lines around her eyes, Gonzalez looks quite young. 

Relentlessly driven, Emily thinks.

“I did my residency in a hospital on the outskirts of Tucson, where I was raised. A part of why I did it is because I wanted to take care of these people. I didn’t think it was my place to pass judgement on them…. All I knew was that they probably needed a doctor who could speak their language, and who might be able to show them some decency and sympathy.”

Sad.

“I saw many migrants brought in by border patrol in the couple years I practiced. A few of them told me about what they went through escaping the vigilantes. It was rough on the spirit, both as a doctor, and as a Mexican-American.”

She opens the folder and pulls out three photographs which she pushes to the center of the table. 

Emily leans forward to get a good look at them. JJ’s shoulder presses into hers as she does too.

Each shows a different mother, Hispanic, with an infant son.

The first shows a laughing woman with a stylish bob of dark hair, her son in her lap, his little face smeared with neon blue icing from a cupcake. 

“Lisa Gomez and her two year old son Raul, both U.S citizens, both went missing in 1998 from a conservation area Southeast of Tucson.”

The second, a young woman with deep dimples in cargo pants and hiking boots carries her son on her shoulders, the child’s arms wrapped loosely around her neck. 

“Maritza Cavasos and her two year old son Julio, both U.S citizens, missing since 2001. Disappeared from the same area.”

The third shows a tall woman in evening wear, leaning back against a wall, peering down at the child sleeping in her arms with unquestionable adoration, her heels kicked off, but still within frame of the camera. 

“Lina Gonzalez and her two year old son Elias, both U.S Citizens,” she says in a softer voice, “Missing since 2004 from the same area.”

Then Gonzalez pushes forward three more photos.

Three large cardboard boxes full of sand… half of a human skull, a shoulder girdle, the bones of a forearm emerging from each of them. 

The photos she pulls out next are of three adult skeletons on morgue tables.

“They were found eight days ago, buried on the side of a closed off trail in a wildlife refuge near the border Southwest of Tucson. They’ve been identified as each of the missing women.”

Gonzalez won’t look at the photographs. Instead, she stares hard at the hand she has pressed flat on the table, the only outward sign of her nerves.

“And the boys,” Morgan asks.

Emily meets Gonzalez’s eyes; besides her, JJ is very still. 

“Not in the boxes we’ve found,” Gonzalez says, turning to Morgan, “But there’s more. These are photos of each of the women’s tibias.”

“They look scratched,” Reid says.

Emily picks up one of the photographs, “Scratched is an understatement, it’s like somebody dug into the bone all around it’s circumference at the shin. It’s the same pattern in all three.”

Gonzalez nods, then pulls out another photograph that makes the meager contents of Emily’s stomach shift.

She clears her throat.

“One of the worst things I saw when I worked in the ER was a couple of migrants who came in by ambulance with a bear trap around their ankles.”

“Jesus,” Morgan says.

“Those teeth go all the way to the bone,” Gonzalez continues, “They’re meant to hold the bears in place until the hunter… the vigilantes...can come back and shoot them.”

Hotch is peering at all the photographs intently.

“What’s your theory,” he asks.

Gonzalez clears her throat, “Frankly, sir. I believe a vigilante with a history of murdering undocumented immigrants has been hunting young Mexican-American women and their sons in the greater Tucson area for the last nine years. I believe he has expanded his definition of invaders, and the consequence of that is this. One mother, one son every three years.”

From the file, she pulls out a newspaper article and hands it to Hotch.

“This is a Tucson paper from two weeks ago. Please look at page 2.”

He does.

The title of the article reads: University teaching assistant and her son, 2, disappear from camping trip at Las Cienegas National Conservation Area.

“Ella del Rio and her one and a half year old son Leo,” JJ says, “Missing since February 2nd.”

“Do we know anything about what’s happened to the boys,” Emily asks.

“No,” JJ says from beside her, “As far as we know, all of the boys are still missing.” 

They all look to Hotch, who’s frowning, the gears in his mind turning as he examines each of the photographs.

“Dr. Gonzalez,” Reid asks in that soft, uncertain voice he uses when he’s unsure if his curiosity will be well received, “Why’d you leave the hospital for the FBI?”

Gonzalez considers him.

“Lina Gonzalez was my first cousin on my father’s side. We were very close growing up, and we stayed that way until the end. Elías... is my godson.”

The silence in the room is profound, but Gonzalez just smiles a little.

“I joined the bureau shortly after their disappearance in hopes that my experiences as a doctor on the border might be of some use in solving their case some day...I believe today is that day Agent Hotchner.”

Unstoppable, Emily thinks, finishing her profile.

In that moment, Emily knows that they need this woman to solve the case. And she knows that JJ knows it too. It’s why Gonzalez is here. 

Hotch extends a hand toward the woman.

“Wheels up in twenty. Glad to have you joining us Dr. Gonzalez.”

Emily doesn’t have to be brave enough to look at JJ to know that if she dares to look, she’ll find bright triumph in her eyes. 

///////////////////

By the end of the day, they’ve landed in Tucson and established a solid working relationship with the local police. 

They’ve visited the site where the bones were found, and round off the day with a visit to the Santa Rita Mountains, the area where all the women and children went missing, albeit from different campsites. 

Arizona is warm and dry, even in February. 

By four, as Emily and JJ hike up a steep trail to the campsite where Maritza and Julio Cavasos, the second mother and child to go missing, were last seen alive, Emily finds herself shrugging out of her blazer, leaving her in a navy button up that she rolls up to her elbows. 

Beside her, JJ does the same, cheeks pink with the heat. 

They fill the chasm of strange tension between them with small talk about the hike and ideas they have so far on the case. 

Emily hates it. Hates how JJ’s avoided looking her in the eye since their morning run in.

Gonzalez hasn’t. 

In fact, once, at the police department, Emily catches the doctor eyeing her as she adjusts the collar of her shirt. It’s such a welcome distraction from the fog of thoughts about JJ that Emily actually smiles. It pulls a small blush from the doctor.

Morgan waits for Gonzalez to turn back to Hotch before sidling up to Emily and shooting her a look. 

She raises her eyebrows at him. 

He raises them higher. 

She nods once, slowly.

“Well, well, well Prentiss,” he mutters.

“We’ll have a drink after this case is over,” she mutters back.

“I’m gonna hold you to that ladykiller.”

He dodges her elbow with a snort.

Unfortunately, Gonzalez accompanies Rossi and Reid to the site of her cousin’s disappearance while Hotch and Morgan visit Ella del Rio’s. 

So Emily and JJ are left alone to fumble through a loud silence neither of them fully understand.

Emily unfolds the park map in her pocket as they walk. 

“It should be just over the ridge of this hill through some trees on the left,” she says, eyes tracing the trail they’re currently on.

“You won’t dress code me will you,” JJ says, pulling ahead of her.

“What?”

And then she’s watching JJ slide her shirt off her shoulders, leaving her in a creamy tank top that exposes the flushed skin of her shoulders and upper back to the warm breeze. 

Emily knows she’ll only choke on her words, so she waits until they come out only semi-breathless.

“Of course not.”

JJ looks over her shoulder, and finally, finally, they’re looking at one another. Emily is surprised by the flash of anger she sees on the younger woman's face, her lips pressing into a thin line as she ties the shirt around her waist and waits for Emily to catch up. 

“Here we are,” she says.

They’re overlooking a clearing before a scrubby patch of woods backed by mountains that are almost blue in the dimming sunlight. 

It’s undeniably beautiful, and for a moment, her and JJ just take it in, the vague but not unpleasant smell of their sweat mingling with that of the trees and earth. 

“Prentiss,” JJ says and the way she says it has Emily’s stomach sinking, “Are we… do we have a problem?”

Emily decides evasion is her best tactic.

“Why would we have a problem?”

“Because you’ve been acting really weird all week.”

Damn it. 

“Well, you’ve been acting really weird all day.”

“You know why,” JJ sighs.

“Not really,” Emily says.

JJ’s stance radiates skepticism.

“...I have an idea that it has something to do with whatever papers you didn’t want me to see on your desk.”

JJ crosses her arms over her chest; Emily valiantly keeps her eyes trained on JJ’s because the alternative is acknowledgment that the blonde’s motion is doing wonders for her décolletage.

“I didn’t see them,” Emily says, “But even if I had it would be none of my business.” 

A beat, then JJ’s arms fall to her sides and she lets her head tilt upward, eyes closed, shaking her head. 

Emily tells herself that it’s the heat and not being treated to the sight of the long column of JJ’s neck that has her feeling the abrupt need to use the map as a fan.

“I mean it,” she says, succumbing to the urge and feeling a little relief at the cool air fanning out over her hot skin.

“Shit. I know,” JJ says, opening her eyes, “God I’m sorry. I don’t really know where my head has been recently… just… gone really, way in the clouds.”

“What the hell are you talking about,” Emily says with a laugh, “JJ, you’ve got one to be one of the most grounded people in all the bureau.” 

JJ smirks, “Ironic that you profilers need one of the most grounded people in all the bureau to keep the jet from falling out of the sky.”

Emily groans at the joke. 

“Oh, I think the pilots the bureau hires would be affronted to hear those words.”

The words draw a laugh from JJ that has Emily feeling more at ease than she has in days.

Emily reaches forward and grasps JJ’s wrist before she can think it through. 

“Jennifer...the BAU won’t fall apart just because you let yourself have a life outside of your office. Or just because you have a rough day….It shouldn’t. And if it does, that’s not on you. ”

JJ mouths the word “Jennifer,” eyes trained on the edge of the trail where clayish dirt turns to scrappy, thriving grass.

“I’m not afraid of that,” she says at last.

Emily drops her gaze too.

“But hey, like I said, it’s none of my business,” she repeats.

“Hm,” JJ says, “So I’m guessing the reason behind your weirdness all week is none of my business either then.”

They stand in that silence for a moment, and Emily’s remembering JJ kneeling before her on the jet after that first dream, not embarrassed or, God, pitying her for crying in her sleep, just…there, compassionate and strong and oblivious.

“No,” Emily says, letting JJ’s wrist drop, “It has nothing to do with you.”

“You’ll tell me if it ever does, right?” 

“Of course,” Emily says, and wonders if she’s lying to herself as well as to the woman before her.

JJ’s shoulders relax, slumping forward a little in relief.

And then things are normal between them, even if they’ve both managed to keep their secrets close to their chests. At least now they can work.

“You be the unsub,” Emily says. 

JJ’s eyebrows rise.

“Me?”

“I seriously think I might be developing heatstroke. Have mercy on an ailing woman and do my work for me for a few minutes,” Emily says, batting her eyelashes, “Please.”

JJ rolls her eyes.

They leave the path and approach the clearing. There are two thinner paths that lead off it and into the woods, which grow denser almost immediately.

They take the path on the left and feel the forest shadows instantly cool the faint sweat on their bodies. 

“He’s comfortable moving through the woods at night,” JJ begins, “He knows the trails well and doesn’t weigh very much. He was probably in the military.”

“Why’d you say that?”

“It’s dark in here and it’s barely four pm. Imagine walking down this trail in a few hours. You have to know where you’re going to not knock yourself out with a pine trunk.”

“Good,” Emily says with a smile, “And the rest?”

“The trail is pebbly and covered in needles, so wouldn’t you have to have stealth training not to make the racket we’re making right now?” 

“Unless,” Emily says.

“Unless…. he’s already in the woods,” JJ says, “He doesn’t normally use the trails.”

“Why’s that?”

“He’s not a camper…. he’s a hunter. He’s on the forest floor…. I still say he’s military… that or he’s up in the trees.” 

On instinct, both women scan the canopy above them. Thankfully, nothing but green. 

They look at the map and take another tiny fork left and then they’re in a good sized round clearing surrounded by thick trunked pines. 

“Imagine bringing your two year old out here,” JJ says.

“You won’t take your kids camping, JJ,” Emily asks.

“After this? Maybe in the backyard,” JJ says. 

“All the women were outdoors enthusiasts,” Emily says, “Ella del Rio is an ecology graduate student. Lina Gonzalez went camping at least once a month, Maritza Cavasos worked on a ranch, and Lisa Gomez was a nature photographer. They were all single mothers too. I guess this land was one of their happy places away from work and the city... just their baby and the trees.” 

“And the killer,” JJ says with a shake of her head.

“And the killer,” Emily sighs. 

JJ points to the base of a tree and pulls up the reference photo on her PDA.

“That’s where their tent was,” she says.

Emily walks over to it and sits below the pine. 

As she sits, she’s imagining Maritza Cavasos, with her deep set dimples, telling her little boy a bedtime story by the fire, under the tree canopy and the stars. 

“She sets up the tent with the entrance facing the trail, so she can look out if she hears someone coming down the trail at night,” JJ says.

“She gets up at some point in the night to pee, the baby’s sound asleep,” Emily says, getting up, “One reason I hate camping? I hate peeing in the woods. You feel so exposed.”

“I…. cannot imagine you peeing in the woods,” JJ says.

“Count yourself lucky.”

“So she goes a little deeper into the woods, looking for a tree that’ll offer her more cover,” JJ says, then points at a particularly thick pine tree with low branches. 

“He’s waiting for her in the branches,” Emily says.

She’s impressed by how easily JJ pulls herself up into the tree. Before she knows it, JJ’s boots are a couple feet above her. 

I guess those back muscles weren’t just for show, Emily thinks, feeling lightheaded for just a moment. 

“She goes around the tree,” she says, “And steps into the trap here.” 

“She screams,” JJ says.

“He needs to shut her up,” Emily says, tilting her head up to look at JJ.

Something flickers across the blonde’s expression.

“He jumps her.” 

JJ steps off the branch without preamble.

Emily’s cry is lost as JJ brings them both down, rolling them around and ensuring that she takes the brunt of the impact against the forest floor.

The combined force of the ground below her and Emily above her drives a deep groan out of JJ that sends a hot shock to Emily’s core. 

JJ’s hands come up to clutch at Emily’s back as Emily plants both hands on either side of JJ’s face to keep from crushing her. The impact through her hands sends zips up pain all the way up to her jaw.

“Have you lost your mind,” Emily gasps. 

JJ turns her head to cough away from Emily, then looks up at her with a wry smile.

“I was just thinking that the bureau doesn’t pay me enough to do your job for you, Prentiss,” JJ says.

“Well you didn’t have to jump out a tree to tell me it was my turn to be the bad guy,” Emily says, her bluster turning into a helpless laugh, “God are you alright.”

“I’m fine,” JJ says, “What does he do next?”

Their lower halves are pressed together, Emily can feel the bone of JJ’s hip against her own, one of JJ’s legs pressed distractingly between hers. 

“He knocks her out somehow….,” Emily says, feeling a little faint as JJ’s hands slide off her back and squeeze her waist, “Nobody nearby says they heard anything.”

JJ’s eyes are faraway, thinking, and Emily doesn’t think she’s seen a more beautiful sight than that of Jennifer Jareau, flushed and out of breath beneath her, her mind moving a million miles an hour. 

“Drugs? A tree branch?”

“No way to know,” Emily says.

“He’s gotta be very small,” JJ says, “The trap. Tackling her from the tree. It all requires stealth and the knowledge that without surprise, he wouldn’t be able to take her. He’s got serious insecurity issues that he overcompensates for with acts of extreme aggression toward those with less power than him.” 

“And the baby? How does he get her and the baby away in the middle of the night without anybody seeing or hearing anything?” 

“He doesn’t work alone,” JJ says, her breath sweet and warm on Emily’s face. 

There’s a moment of mutual realization as both of them fully register the intimacy of the moment. JJ flushes and lowers the leg she’s been pressing up into Emily. Emily rolls off of her, and holds out a hand to help her up. 

They stand there for a moment, thinking, fingers nearly linked.

“Why wouldn’t the baby cry,” Emily says, “It’s dark, he hears his mother scream once… then what… a strange man comes to get him? And he doesn’t make a sound?”

Their eyes widen, and Emily feels JJ squeeze her hand tightly.

“Not a strange man,” JJ says. 

“A strange woman,” Emily says.

At least one of their unsubs is a woman.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My brain said: Plot and a chapter double the length of the first two!  
> We'll be in Arizona for a couple chapters, then it's back to Quantico. The next chapter should be around the length of the first two. 
> 
> Did I mention this was gonna be a slow burn? I hope JJ literally jumping Emily is enough to even slightly make up for that oversight. 
> 
> Thank you all for reading! Kudos and comments are appreciated!


	4. ghosts in the woods

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Emily has a nightmare; JJ wants to talk about it.

The nightmare begins with the feel of warm hands spread over her ribs.

“Babe….”

“Hmm,” Emily says, struggling to bring the world into focus.

The dark gives way to the curve of JJ’s cheek hovering a little above her. If she tries, Emily thinks she can make out the vaguest halo of blonde hair against the ceiling of the tent. 

“Jayje,” she says, a lazy smile growing on her face. She slings an arm around JJ’s waist, meaning to bring her down for a kiss. 

“Oh no you don’t.”

JJ resists, and her hair tickles Emily’s face.

The hands on her ribs travel upwards, just barely brushing her breasts, fingernails gently scraping upward over the skin of her chest and neck. Emily sighs as the soft pads of fingers finally find their destination and press down gently on her lips. 

“We’ll wake the boys,” JJ whispers.

Emily quiets and turns her head. Two small shadows lie next to the large sleeping bag her and JJ are sharing. 

Keeping one arm around JJ’s waist, she reaches out to the closest child. She brushes dark hair out of closed, long-lashed eyes and he makes a small sleepy noise that makes her feel impossibly tender. 

Her eyes drift to the other boy, identical beside him. Emily thinks they might be holding hands in their sleep, and this too makes her heart feel too big for her chest. She only lets her attention drift back to JJ when the rise and fall of the second boy’s belly assures her that he’s still breathing. 

Her breath catches as JJ presses a soft kiss to her cheek. The hands over her mouth have drifted back down to her chest, tracing the neckline of her tank top. 

“I told you,” she murmurs. 

“Told me what,” Emily says, conscious of JJ’s mouth, so close to her own.

“You. Kids. That it was a good idea.”

A slow kiss on her other cheek. 

The space between them is warm and shimmers with an almost tangible familiarity. 

“I was so unsure,” Emily breathes.

“Why?”

“I was afraid.”

Another kiss to her cheek.

She tightens her hold on JJ’s waist, amazed at the feel of their bodies against one another’s again. For a long moment, they lie there, with each other in the dark.

Then JJ’s pulling away, unzipping their sleeping bag, and sitting up on her knees. 

The loss of her warmth drives a shiver through Emily. It’s like without her, Emily’s body can’t generate enough of its own heat. 

“I gotta go,” JJ says.

“Where,” Emily asks.

“To pee in the woods,” JJ whispers, teasing.

Emily’s heart begins beating in her ears.

They’re still in Arizona. The unsub’s still out there. They still haven’t found Ella del Rio or any of the missing little boys. 

“No.”

“Just because you have a phobia,” JJ says with a chuckle.

“No,” Emily repeats, “JJ…the unsub....”

The warning gets stuck in her throat; her terror gags her temporarily.

JJ ‘s expression is lost in the dark as her face turns toward their sons.

“What do you think they dream about?”

Emily’s eyes flicker to the boys, who have turned to face each other in their sleep. 

She struggles to remember their birth and bringing them home. The many late, exhausted nights with JJ warming up milk bottles and accidentally lulling each other to sleep with hums meant for the bundles in their arms. 

Where is home?

Everything’s suddenly colder, darker.

“I think they dream about us,” JJ whispers, “Why does mama do this? Why does mommy do that?”

Her palms cup Emily’s face.

“Why do you work so damn hard to disappear, Emily,” she asks.

Emily closes her eyes, but it doesn’t make a difference. She still can’t see JJ’s face.

“Every new country, every new agency, every new identity. Every time you see your mother, every time someone tries to sneak a peek underneath this,” JJ says, hands running down Emily’s arms, “Why so you make it impossible to see you clearly?”

The world outside the tent is deathly quiet. 

“Do you wonder what might happen if you do it, if Emily Prentiss actually disappears?”

“Stop,” Emily says, a whisper, a sob. 

“Ghosts can’t be mothers,” JJ says sadly.

Neither can corpses who sat with their pain and troubles so long enough that they ate them alive, Emily wants to say.

To lose herself was part of the job. It was the only way to survive. It was the only way she knew. 

“Don’t go out there,” she says fiercely.

But JJ’s hands are already gone. 

She’s out of the tent, and Emily knows she’s out there, in the woods, in the dark. Alone.

But that’s not where JJ belongs. It’s Emily’s place, not hers. 

Emily turns to their boys, wondering if she’s like her mother. If they despise her just as much as she did when she was younger, like she still does. She wonders if she’s hard for them to love. 

She scoots over in the tent to them and gathers the closest child in her arms. He gives into her easily, and his brother, linked by the hand, too moves closer. Emily brushes the second boy’s cheek, throat too thick with love and fear.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispers, bending over them, and kissing soft foreheads.

JJ’s scream comes from far off. 

The boys startle awake, calling for JJ, calling for Emily.

“I’m here,” Emily says, but they cry as though she weren’t.

She can’t leave them in the tent; she knows what’s coming, so she crawls out and pulls each of them out and up into her arms, one on each hip.

JJ screams again, the sound driving an icicle through her chest. Despairingly, Emily staggers over to a tree where she sets her sons down.

“Stay here,” she whispers, “Wait for me, I’m going to come back. Just stay here. Make a lot of noise if someone else comes and it’s not me or your mama.”

“Where’s mama,” one asks. Emily’s eyes well with tears.

“I’ll be right back,” she gasps.

“Where are you going,” she hears behind her.

Then she’s out in the woods, branches stabbing at her, raking at her arms.

In the moonlight, she thinks she sees a man carrying a bloodied JJ away, a few trees away.

“JJ,” she yells.

“Emily,” comes her strangled reply.

But they melt into the shadows. Emily instinctively goes for her gun, but finds that she cannot see her hands. She’s invisible. She has no gun, no armor. 

Behind her, the boys are wailing. 

Then everything goes quiet again. It’s so quiet, she feels like she’s gonna throw up.

She tears herself away from the place JJ disappeared and runs toward the tree where she left the boys.

But of course they’re gone. 

A ghost can’t be a mother….

The world floods with light.

“Emily!”

“What?!”

Emily jerks back. A sharp explosion of color flashes behind her eyes as she bangs her head against the hotel bed’s headboard.

“Crap,” she hisses. She covers her face with her hands, then peeks out between her fingers.

JJ’s brows are furrowed, her face sleep pale. 

She sits on the edge of the bed beside her, rubbing at her arms in the chilly room. Emily sits up, one hand to her head.

“I couldn’t wake you up, so,” JJ says, gesturing to the lamp.

Emily rubs at her eyes, then stares at her hands, reassured of their existence.

“I’m okay,” she whispers.

“Are you,” JJ asks, skeptically.

Emily’s t-shirt is sticking to her skin with a clammy sweat. She plucks at it with warm cheeks, conscious that it is leaving little underneath to the imagination. 

“Yeah, yeah I’m… it was just a dream,” she waves her hand.

Emily glanced at the clock on the bedside drawer.

2:56am.

“Work in three hours,” Emily says with a groan, “Sorry for waking you, JJ.”

JJ doesn’t move, doesn’t get up and return to her bed; she’s staring hard at the spot on the comforter covering Emily’s hip.

“You called out to me,” she says, “Well, you yelled, actually. That’s what woke me up.” 

“Oh,” Emily says, not quite a question, not quite a statement. 

Five nights of dreams like this, most of them spent sleeping in the same hotel room as JJ. Five nights was how long she’d lasted before giving herself away. 

JJ waits, opens her mouth, closes it, then opens it again. 

“Earlier today, you said you’d let me know if something worrying you had anything to do with me.”

Emily averts her eyes.

“I’m pretty sure this has something to do with me. Come on. Spill.”

Emily lets her head fall back against the headboard, watching the blonde wearily.

“I’m not going back to sleep until you tell me about it,” JJ says, wriggling back and nudging Emily’s legs aside so that she can sit comfortably cross-legged in front of her.

Emily pulls her knees up to her chest, remembering. 

“You were… in my dream. Unsub got you.”

“Oh,” JJ says, “What happened?”

Emily considers the question. How much to say.

“You were camping in the woods with your kids.”

She risks a look at JJ.

Blue eyes have widened, but the right corner of her mouth has risen upward too.

“My kids,” JJ repeats. 

Our kids, a small, tragic part of Emily’s mind thinks.

“Two little boys. Twins. Very, very cute.”

“Yeesh,” JJ says, “Twins?”

“Yeah,” Emily says with a small laugh.

“I get the sweat now,” JJ jokes.

“You loved them,” Emily says, honestly.

JJ hums, “I bet. Was I alone?”

“No,” Emily says, looking down at her hands, which are twisting the fabric of the comforter, “I guess you invited me camping.” 

“No daddy,” JJ asks with a raised brow.

“Not a daddy in sight,” Emily says. 

Something in her stomach twists sourly at the thought. 

“Okay,” JJ says, gaze unreadable, “Then what?”

“Then,” Emily says, “You wanted to leave the tent in the night, in the woods....” 

“Same woods as our case,” JJ asks quietly.

“Yep,” Emily says.

Understanding flickers across JJ’s expression.

“Did I?”

“You said some things to me, and then you left,” Emily says, dropping her head forward.

“What sorts of things?”

Emily meets her eyes.

“You don’t have to answer that,” JJ says softly after a moment, “Then what?”

“And then… I left the boys,” Emily says, “I left them all alone to try to save you.”

JJ reaches forward and slips her hand under the one she’s got clenched into the blanket. 

“It was just a dream,” she says softly, squeezing Emily’s fingers.

The touch unlocks several of Emily’s emotional doors at once. Her throat is tight with them. 

“I know,” Emily manages, laughing because it’s true, “But I left them. Already knowing I couldn’t help you….”

They’re both staring at their joined hands, because the alternative is seeing too much of the other. 

Emily doesn’t want JJ to see her naked like this, and she doesn’t want to see the complicated things she always sees in JJ’s eyes as she takes in new information about the world and the people she works with.

Emily Prentiss isn’t fearless. Emily Prentiss has silly bad dreams. Emily Prentiss dreams about me.

“At least you tried,” JJ says, thumb tracing circles on the top of Emily’s hand.

“Not hard enough.”

“Emily,” JJ says, “Look at me. Look at me.”

She does. And it’s a repeat of all those months ago, when JJ had dog bites on her arms and a look in her eyes so far away, so hopelessly lost that it moved something in Emily forever. 

Only this time, their roles are reversed.

JJ’s eyes are intent and fierce and won’t allow her to look away.

“What do you think your dream means,” JJ asks, voice low. 

She’s leaning forward a little, their linked hands on the white comforter between them, and Emily has a brief flash of tightening her grip on JJ’s hand and pulling her forward on top of her. Kissing her senseless. 

“That a ghost can’t be a mother,” she says without thinking, then wishes she could take them back.

JJ’s thumb stops it’s movements. It’s clearly not the answer the media liaison was expecting. She blinks. 

“Emily,” she starts, then trails off, truly at a loss for words. 

Despite sharing a hotel room most days of the year, despite seeing some of the worse humanity has to offer together every day, Emily’s never opened up like this to JJ before, and the sensation triggers her fight-or-flight. 

She drops JJ’s hand.

“We really should get back to sleep. It’s gonna be a long day today.”

There’s a flicker of something that looks like hurt mixed with the vague surprise in JJ’s eyes. 

She glances at the clock and blows air out of her cheeks, before giving Emily a wane smile and slipping off the bed and back into her own.

Emily turns off the bedside lamp and they’re left, once again, in the dark.

“Prentiss,” JJ says. 

It stings to have JJ call her by her surname again, after all that.

“Yeah?”

“You’re really thinking about it, aren’t you? Having kids.”

Emily turns to her side.

“I don’t know anymore.”

There’s a quiet that lasts so long Emily half-feels they’ve both gone to sleep. 

“I think you should keep thinking about it,” JJ murmurs, “Just a thought.”

“I will,” Emily chuckles.

She lies awake until JJ’s breathing fully evens out, and goes to sleep wondering grimly, if the missing boys from their case are even alive. She wonders if they know how much their dead mothers loved them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I’m obsessed with a gif set I came across on tumblr saying that Emily is a ghost full of beauty while JJ is a beautiful thing full of ghosts..... what concepts!
> 
> Thank you all for reading! Next chapter should wrap up the Arizona case.


	5. people who’ve got your back, no matter what

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Emily rises early and eager to get get some distance between her and JJ; JJ’s not having it. The team catches a break on the Arizona case.

Emily tries to pack her day bag quietly in the dark of the hotel room.

“What time is it,” JJ asks in a dazed voice from her bed.

“Go back to sleep,” Emily murmurs.

She rolls a little perfume onto her pulse points and pulls her belt through the loops of her blue hiking pants, listening to the tell-tale rustle of sheets as JJ sits up anyway. 

“Five fifteen,” she groans, the sound of her lying back down, “Why...? Why... is... my back so sore?”

“Jumping out of a tree and under another federal agent will do that to a girl,” Emily whispers, tiptoeing toward the door.

JJ turns over with a sigh.

“Remind me of this next time you ask me to play unsub.”

“You mean, remind you not to go method during our investigations,” Emily mutters back, striding for the door, “You know I’ll never let you forget it.”

She opens the door.

“Emily, wait,” JJ calls out, voice cracking a little from disuse.

A beam of light from the hallway illuminates part of JJ’s face watching her, blinking the sleep out of her eyes. 

Emily can’t bring herself to meet that blue gaze, so she focuses instead on the way the shadows outline the curve of JJ’s jaw. 

“Yeah?”

A beat.

“About your dream—”

Emily closes her eyes, sighing.

“You’d be doing me a favor if you just...forgot all about it. Past five am, it’s just embarrassing.”

“No, it’s not,” JJ says, pushing herself up to sit back against the headboard, “I think... it says a lot about the kind of person you are that you’re always thinking about helping other people. Even in your dreams.”

Emily says nothing, hand frozen on the door handle.

“It’s you, Emily,” JJ says softly, voice just carrying over to the edge of the room.

“I’ll see you later.” 

“Em…,” she hears, but she’s already shutting the door firmly behind her, body sagging a little with relief in the fluorescently lit hallway. 

Emily wants to cover her freshly made-up face with her hands.

She’d awoken at 4:50, tensed as though ready to run, instantly alert, and needing to get the hell out of that hotel room. Needing to breathe air other than the one JJ was also taking into her lungs. 

She’s still thinking about that last look of speechless, pitying surprise on JJ’s face before they’d gone back to sleep. 

Why had Emily told her anything? 

Wasn’t the whole point of the bound notebook she’d packed in her go-bag to avoid having to tell another living soul about these dreams?

“Well that’s out the window,” she mutters to herself in the elevator. 

It’s still incredibly dark outside of the hotel when she steps into the lobby.

Recognizing the only other person sitting at a table by the windows, Emily makes her way over, boots hardly making a sound over cheap green carpet.

Gonzalez doesn’t notice her until Emily’s at the table, peering down at a spread of case files and books she has open in front of her 

“Agent Prentiss,” she says, surprised.

“Dr. Gonzalez,” Emily says in the same surprised tone, smiling a little to show that she’s teasing.

The woman’s long dark hair is loose and damp and curling, darkening the fabric of her navy blazer, so unlike the perfectly unruffled woman she’d presented herself as yesterday. Today, she looked comfortable, serious, and lost in thought.

Gonzalez pushes aside some of her papers, gesturing for Emily to sit. 

“Please.”

“What has you up at five in the morning,” Emily asks, picking up one of the papers.

It’s a hospital bill from 1996 for Lisa Gomez, their first murdered woman. 

“Correction: what has you awake and working at five in the morning,” Emily asks.

“I could ask you the same question.”

“I just... couldn’t sleep anymore,” Emily explains.

Gonzalez hums.

“My sleep schedule has been whacked since residency,” she says, “No matter what, I can’t wake up any later than 5:15am. I mostly see it as a sort of blessing, a little extra time to think before the sun comes up.”

“Oh God,” Emily says, “An optimist.”

Gonzalez laughs.

“I don’t know…. sometimes I use this time to ask myself lots of scary, not so optimistic questions.”

“Such as?”

Gonzalez watches her for long enough to make Emily feel like squirming a little.

“Am I happy? With my life or with who I am right now,” she says at last.

“And are you,” Emily asks.

“I don’t know,” the woman says, “I think… I need this case to be solved to answer those questions. But sometimes just asking them to myself everyday helps keep me in line with me….”

She trails off.

“So let’s solve it,” Emily says after a few moments of silence, “What are you working on?”

Gonzalez lifts the yellow legal pad from her lap, “I’m taking the preliminary profile you all gave last night at the station and trying to figure out why our unsubs are choosing these specific women and children.”

“Well,” Emily says, “As we said, he’s an incredibly insecure white man….”

They exchange a look.

“... who uses his racism as an excuse to act on the impulse to hurt others as well as to prove his superiority to those around him. We think he experienced some sort of disappointment or blow to his ego regarding a mother and child in his life some ten years ago… could be his wife cheated on him and had a kid with another man, could be that his mother gave another sibling a better piece of the inheritance.”

Gonzalez nods, a mirthless smile forming on her lips.

“...so all he had to do was expand his racist beliefs about Hispanic undocumented immigrants to any Hispanic-looking mother and young child he comes across for him to find an acceptable outlet for that rage,” she finishes.

“Right,” Emily says, “And because his reputation is all that matters to him, he can’t hit his wife or children because he can’t risk that it might ever get out to the people he knows. These women and children are his next best bet.”

Gonzalez’s mouth is pursed in disgust, her eyes staring out at some place beyond Emily’s shoulder. 

“Do you think the boys are dead,” she asks eventually.

Emily falters, then exhales.

“You know the statistics,” she says quietly.

“I do,” Gonzalez says just as quietly.

Emily looks down at the open book in her hands. Gonzalez has it open to the image of what looks like a deep blue, stormy sky. 

“That’s Lisa Gomez’s first and only published book of photographs,” the doctor explains. 

“I thought she was a nature photographer,” Emily says.

“She was,” Gonzalez says, “Read the caption.”

“Heart of Blue Bougainvillea at Dusk, Jackson Ranch, Arizona, 1995,” Emily says.

“She was a fan of Georgia O’Keefe’s minimalism,” Gonzalez explains, “Quotes her on the dedication page: ‘It is only by selection, by elimination, and by emphasis that we get at the real meaning of things.’” 

Emily glances up at the book’s dedication, printed in Spanish, and feels a small tightness spread over her chest.

‘For my son, your little hands touched my world and everything, especially the little things, was born new and gorgeous again.’

“Sometimes I wish I could see the world like that again,” Emily says quietly.

“Like what?”

“Beautiful,” Emily says, feeling the second word come out more reluctantly, “Human.” 

Gonzalez says nothing.

She flips back to the photograph Gonzalez originally had open, frowning.

“Jackson Ranch,” she murmurs, “Where JJ and I are headed today?”

Multiple photographs in the book list the same location.

“Maritza Cavasos’s last place of employment,” Gonzalez says, “The owners have part of it open to the public for hunting, another part for hiking and camping; they run a little visitors center that sells all types of gear….”

She trails off.

“What is it?”

“It’s what I’ve been thinking about; Lina and I went camping there once, about a year before Elías was born.” 

Emily sits up and leans forward.

“So we have three victims with a connection to this ranch.”

“It’s mostly a local secret, only a few miles away from the border,” Gonzalez says, also leaning forward, “A place away from all the tourists to do your outdoorsy stuff.”

Emily’s heart begins to thrum with the excitement of a new lead.

“The women could’ve met our man here. If he’s a local, he would’ve known about this place. It could be his hunting ground.”

“You and Agent Jareau need to get a hold of those visitor records,” Gonzalez says.

Emily falters at the idea of being alone with JJ again.

“Since you’ve visited the place before, would you like to join us?”

-x-x-x

The drive up the driveway of Jackson Ranch is lined with tall broad based oaks. Beyond them, a few clusters of red and white cattle graze lazily on scrubby grass. 

By the time they reach the visitor’s center parking lot, the entrance gates are nothing but tiny pinpricks in the rearview mirror.

“Hotch wants us to wear our vests any time we’re in the field for the rest of this case,” JJ says, putting her phone down and offering them both a small, grim smile. 

They all knew why.

This was the type of unsub who would rather die than be caught. His reputation was what mattered the most to him. If he suspected that he was suspected, they could not let on. He would go down shooting. 

Emily passes a couple vests from the back to Gonzalez and JJ before tugging her own on over her head. She pretends she can’t feel JJ’s eyes on her as she tightens the kevlar against her chest.

The visitor’s center is empty when they enter it.

“Sign says they’re open,” Emily says, leaning forward to look behind a display counter full of hunting knives ranging from as small as her thumb to as long as her forearm. 

Gonzalez rings the small bell beside the cash register.

“Who knew there were this many different kinds of camo,” JJ says, running a hand through a rack of hunter’s clothing, “Oh, Prentiss, your vest.” 

Emily stiffens despite herself as one of JJ’s hands steadies her by the shoulder while the other sharply tugs at the loose strap on her waist. A quick breath escapes Emily against her will, and she focuses on staring down hard at the knives.

“Thanks.” 

The warmth of JJ’s hands don’t quite leave her. Her fingertips linger, and Emily fights the thought that she wants to feel them digging deep into her skin. Pressing into her.

There’s the high ding of Gonzalez ringing the counter bell again.

Emily’s side goes cold as JJ steps away.

“Any time,” the media liaison says, and she sounds just a little tired.

A few moments later a door slams, then a flush faced woman, black hair pulled back into a low ponytail rushes into the store.

“I’m so sorry for the wait ladies,” she says, dropping a bag onto the floor and tugging on her employee apron, “I was dropping off my son at the junior high; popped a tire pulling off the highway and had to hitch a ride with… oh it doesn’t matter. How can I help y’all?”

Emily blinks and exchanges a look with Gonzalez.

The woman looks like she cannot possibly be older than twenty five. 

Emily obliterates the brief image that she’s looking at an alternate version of herself from a decade ago. A version of herself that didn’t have Matthew there to find her that doctor, to hold her hand, to save her life.

She’s positive she wouldn’t have handled it as well as this woman appears to be. Emily knows she’d have fallen apart at the seams.

JJ outstretches a hand to the woman, and Emily and Gonzalez hold out their badges for her to see.

The smile slowly falls off the woman’s face as they explain their reason for visiting.

“Visitor records,” she says slowly, “I would have to ask my father about that. We do ask for names and save all our receipts if they buy something, but he keeps all those things out back in his cabin.”

“Is your father the owner,” Emily asks.

“Yes ma’am,” the young woman says.

“Is he here,” Gonzalez asks.

The young woman glances quickly to and away from Gonzalez and back to Emily.

“I’d have to give him a call. I’d say yes, but he does like his mornings to himself. Sometimes he drives into town for breakfast.”

“Any help you both could give us would be greatly appreciated,” JJ says in her most effective liaison voice. Soft, but strong and steady. The type of voice that told people they’d be jerks for not even trying to help.

“I’ll give him a call then,” the young woman finally says, pulling out her phone. 

She steps into the back room and closes the door behind her.

She reappears a few moments later, and guides them out the back, toward a chain linked gate guarded by a padlock she unlocks with a key from her belt. 

“He didn’t answer, but you all can check on him anyway. Sometimes he steps away from the phone.”

“Thank you so much,” JJ says.

The path continues beyond the gate bordered by a thicket of tall woods. 

“It’s a straight shot down this trail,” the young woman says, “Walk around behind the back of the cabin and bang on the door a couple times; he should step out in a few seconds if he’s in there. And if not, y’all just come back here.”

“Thank you,” Gonzalez says.

Again, the young woman avoids meeting Gonzalez’s eyes, and smiles instead, at Emily. 

Emily feels a prickle of something that only grows stronger as they approach the cabin, neat and sparse in the center of a clearing in the trees.

The three of them hop up the back steps and knock a few times on the wooden door. The area around the porch is full of potted flowers that look native to Arizona. Gonzalez steps off the porch to get a closer look at them.

“Anything,” Emily asks.

JJ shakes her head and looks out at the woods, listening to the rustle of the morning breeze through the trees. 

“Did she say she had a son in middle school,” JJ asks.

“Yeah,” Emily says, leaning against the wooden railing.

JJ blows air out her cheeks, “I can’t even imagine… having a kid so young, just a kid yourself. How hard that would be.”

Emily swallows, “She must have good parents.”

Gonzalez is still casually looking at the plants, just out of earshot.

“Or at least people who love her.” JJ says, “Guess that’s the secret to doing it at any age. People who’ve got your back, no matter what.”

Emily turns to face her and finds JJ eyes searching her expression.

“There,” JJ mutters, eyes widening with mirth, “Was looking at me in the eyes really that damn hard?”

Emily drops her gaze instantly.

“He’s not here,” Gonzalez says in a raised voice.

Emily steps off the porch without responding to JJ. 

She follows after a moment. 

Gonzalez’s arms are crossed and her gaze is trained on the flowers on the porch. She meets Emily’s eye and Emily feels a chill run down her spine.

“Let’s go,” Emily says, “Guess we’ll just have to keep calling back.”

They start down the path, walking in silence until the gate’s in sight.

It’s closed, the padlock sealing them in. 

The woman from the visitor’s center is nowhere in sight.

“What the...,” JJ says.

Emily’s hand is on her holster. 

“It’s him,” Gonzalez hisses, moving closer so they can hear her, “The flowers. They’re all the ones in Lisa Gomez’s book. The woman from the Visitor’s Center, she’s….”

Emily and JJ both whip around at the same time to search the trees above them, guns drawn.

As soon as Emily spots the shadow standing in the branches of one of the trees a few feet behind them, she’s hearing the first gunshot go off. 

JJ moves too quickly. 

Emily sees Gonzalez being shoved toward one side of the path and feels herself being shoved toward the other. She can’t even blink as she watches JJ get blown back off her feet, going down hard on her back with a cry.

“Agent Prentiss,” Gonzalez shouts.

Emily doesn’t even hear the second gunshot, and only casually registers the blinding pain in the back of her shoulder before she’s hunching down on the ground, shielding JJ’s body with her own. 

She tightly grips cold hands that are weakly grasping for the straps of her vest, and presses them to the ground. 

Only now does Emily really meet JJ’s eyes. 

Their vests weren’t made to withstand shots from a rifle. She can see the tip of the long bullet piercing the vest just under JJ’s right breast. 

“JJ,” she croaks. 

Emily presses her forehead against the media liaison’s, some her hair slipping out of its ponytail and shielding them from the world. JJ’s eyes are tearing up, wide with shock. 

She knows that what she’s doing is against protocol. She should be helping Gonzalez. They could all be dead in moments…. But she refuses to move, to leave JJ. Let the bullets come. 

Her shoulder’s throbbing terribly, and droplet of Emily’s blood sleeps into the white shirt JJ’s wearing under her vest.

JJ’s groan turns into a shuddering gasp for breath, but she won’t let Emily look away.

“Your arm,” she gasps. 

“It’s fine, I’m fine,” she says, conscious that her voice is trembling, “Just hang on.”

There’s the sound of other gunshots and of a body falling from the trees with a thump.

“Emily,” she hears the doctor say, “Get off, let me see her. Keep your gun on the gate, in case she comes back.”

Emily pulls herself up and sits down hard on the ground, the blood seeping steadily out of her shoulder making her feel a little faint. She glances over and sees a slight, balding man lying in a growing pool of blood.

Gonzalez is unstrapping JJ’s vest, pulling up her shirt and revealing the tip of the bullet just dipping into JJ’s skin. It doesn’t look too deep, but the bruising already around it, and JJ’s gasps send a shudder of fear through Emily.

Gonzalez pulls out her phone as JJ finally closes her eyes.

Without feeling, Emily points her gun to the locked gate and waits.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Valentine’s Day, have some angst! 
> 
> Phew, this was a long, plotty chapter, but hopefully still an entertaining one. Thank you all for all your lovely comments and thank you all for reading!


	6. does it hurt? yes, but not so much.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Emily and JJ have a talk; the Arizona case is closed.

“Ma’am. Ma’am!”

Emily pauses, reluctantly, a couple steps beyond the drapes of her hospital room. Despite the painkillers, her right shoulder feels like it’s been slammed into with a sledgehammer. Repeatedly. 

The nurse practitioner who’d cheerfully tugged the bullet out and put stitches in, a woman with flaming red hair pulled back into a French braid, strides out to meet her from the nurse’s station. 

Emily winces as she reflexively shrugs off the helping hand on her elbow.

“Where are you going,” the woman asks, unruffled. 

The portions of Emily’s arms and chest not covered in bandages or her now bloodstained navy tank top have erupted in goosebumps from the chill of the main ER. 

Emily really hates hospitals. 

“I need to see the woman I came in with,” she says, “Jennifer Jareau.”

“You shouldn’t even be on your feet right now,” the nurse says gently, “Those painkillers I gave you can make people pretty woozy.”

Emily looks the other woman dead in the eyes, pretending the world around her isn’t swaying just a little. 

How long had she been lying in her room in a drug-induced haze? Half an hour? An hour?

“I just need to see for myself that she’s okay.”

After a moment, the woman holds out one white coated arm. 

“Fine, but hang on,” she says with a smirk, “Today will not be the day an FBI agent faceplants in my ER. You look like you’re halfway there already.”

Emily lets herself be led to a room a few doors down to where JJ lies asleep in a comfortable dimness. 

Her long blonde hair has mostly fallen out of its ponytail, but someone, likely a nurse, has tucked some of it behind her ears to fit the oxygen cannula currently under her nostrils.

“What happened to her exactly,” Emily asks, voice even. 

The nurse pulls up a chair close to JJ’s bedside and gestures for Emily to sit.

Emily lowers herself into the chair slowly, slowly, till her knees are level with the bottom of the mattress. Then she notices that JJ’s fallen asleep with her PDA cradled in her hands.

Had she tried to work before finally passing out? 

Emily’s heart thrums harshly in her chest. 

“Collapsed lung and some pretty badly bruised ribs caused by the impact of the bullet on her vest.”

The nurse clicks her tongue.

“Kevlar….”

“Not the greatest against rifles,” Emily finishes. 

At that moment, JJ looks so young. Too young for all the weight on her shoulders.

“Well, it stopped this bullet,” the nurse says, shaking her head with amazement and moving to check on JJ’s IV, “Her penetration injuries were almost nonexistent. You got off way worse… the bullet actually….”

Emily catches her eye.

“Well, you know.” 

Emily does know. If the shot hadn’t caught the corner of her vest and gone into the muscle at exactly the angle it did…. She draws her right hand into a fist because she can, and tries not to think about how today could’ve been the day she lost the ability to knock an unsub down with a single punch. 

“She’s going to be just fine,” the nurse says, and at her soft tone, Emily realizes her whole body has gone absolutely rigid. 

“It’ll take a couple days for her lung to fully reinflate, but she should be fully back to normal in a few weeks.”

Emily’s fingers curl tightly into the edge of the hospital mattress, eyes shutting for a moment in relief. 

“Are you two close,” the woman asks, hands deep in her white coat pockets.

Emily sighs, giving the best casual shrug she can give under the circumstances.

“About as close as you can be sharing space with someone for most of your days and most of your nights,” she says, watching JJ’s eyebrows furrow a little in her sleep. 

“I’d say that counts.”

Does it?

If Emily thinks about it…JJ probably knows her better than most people on the planet. 

She knows exactly how Emily likes her coffee. What Emily looks like first thing in the morning, black hair messy and face bare and sometimes startlingly pale. She can look past Emily’s grouchiness, and instead of thinking of her as a hardass like most people do, JJ takes the time to look for the reasons behind all her scowling even if Emily doesn’t usually let her find those reasons.

It warms her to know that JJ has yet to stop trying. 

But the fact remains: JJ doesn’t know Emily. And Emily doesn’t know JJ. 

Sure they spend a lot of time together, and in the year or so they’ve known each other, Emily's learned how to read JJ too.

JJ’s most troubled at the end of a long day, when she’s fresh out of the shower, her eyes far away, still bogged down by impossible questions from victim's families or friends, the skin of her nose and cheeks rosy and clean.

JJ’s anger is quiet. 

She doesn’t lash out in a quick, vicious strike like Emily does sometimes. Instead, JJ turns her anger into action. Into an extra phone call here, an especially big smile for a particularly uncooperative police department there. When her anger gets to be too much? JJ swiftly shuts everyone out with a look or a sharp word, leaving no room for further questions. 

And when JJ’s truly happy? Emily knows that too. 

Her laugh is louder, her jokes dirtier, and her teasing even more relentless. When JJ’s happy, it’s really hard for everyone else not to be. 

Emily doesn’t think she knows what being close to someone means. Not honestly anyway, batting away memories of her life before the BAU. 

Was this it?

“When will she be okay enough to fly out with us,” Emily asks, pulling herself out of her thoughts. 

“Oh, no flying for her for at least a couple weeks,” the nurse says, “Not until her doctor back in DC gives her the okay.”

Emily’s mouth opens.

“But her life’s in DC. That’s an....”

“Over thirty hour drive,” JJ says in a hoarse voice, eyes still closed, “Yeah it is.”

She winces as she comes fuller into consciousness and Emily finds herself releasing a breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding.

“You can’t drive all that way by yourself. Not like this,” Emily says.

“Who says I’m driving?”

JJ’s eyes slowly open, and her pupils are a little blown from the painkillers in a way that makes it feel, just for a split second, like Emily’s falling.

Just then, there’s the sound of a commotion out in the main ER. Emily can hear the thrums of Morgan and Reid’s voices coming from beyond the drapes, the even sound of Gonzalez’s voice too.

Emily clears her throat.

“If anybody out there asks for me, can you tell them I’m in here?”

The nurse nods and then she and JJ are left alone together.

Emily looks entreatingly back at JJ. 

“I’ve got the trip back to DC handled,” the communications liaison says, fingers tightening ever so slightly PDA in her hands.

Emily scoffs, “When’d you have time to pull up those contacts? When they were putting the giant needle into your chest?” 

“About fifteen minutes after that, actually,” JJ says, then eyes the bandages layered on Emily’s shoulder, “How’s your arm?” 

Emily glances down at it, “Sore as hell. How’s your chest?”

“Sore as hell,” JJ repeats with a half-smile, “I was told it’s going to hurt to laugh for a month.”

“Ooh,” Emily says gravely, “How will you cope with sorting through all those brutal murders that come across your desk?”

JJ’s hand comes up to her ribs, blue eyes flashing, “Agh, Emily!”

“Serves you right for you pushing me and Gonzalez out of the line of fire back there,” Emily says.

JJ points a lazy index finger at Emily, the other hand still delicately pressed to her ribs.

“No other agents are going to want to assist us on cases like this if it gets out that the BAU lets it’s guests get taken out by racist serial killers.”

She has a point. Emily sighs. 

“Gonzalez solved the case, and shot down our unsub,” JJ continues, “We need people like her. People from the bureau who are closer to the cases we’re trying to develop profiles for. They catch things that even we miss.”

Emily waits a moment before speaking again.

“But not at the cost of you, JJ.”

JJ blinks, a small blush spreading over her nose and cheeks.

“You really freaked me out back there.”

She shakes the image of JJ lying helpless on the ground in the woods.

“You freaked me out,” JJ says, hand curling around the bed’s railing a few inches away from Emily’s, “Or am I supposed to forget about the fact that you played human shield for me back there?”

At that, the muscles of Emily’s face smooth out automatically, going carefully blank. 

“Hey,” JJ says.

JJ surprises her by letting go of the phone still in her hand and reaching over to the edge of the bed, palm up. Her eyes meet Emily’s expectantly.

Hesitating for just a moment, Emily reaches out and slides her palm over JJ’s. JJ’s fingers fold over hers, warm, and smooth.

“I’d do it again,” JJ says, “And I know you would too, so let’s just...let it go. For now at least.”

”Let it go,” Emily repeats skeptically.

“Exactly.”

And with that, JJ pulls both of their joined hands to rest on her hip. The back of Emily’s hand is being pressed down against the thin hospital blanket. She can feel the curve of JJ’s hip bone against her knuckles, and even through the layers of cotton, the warmth of her skin.

“Can we talk,” JJ asks.

It takes a few moments for Emily’s mind to reconnect with her mouth.

“Are we not talking right now?” 

JJ raises an eyebrow. 

“A real talk.”

Emily grimaces a little and JJ squeezes her hand sitting up with a small groan that makes a sympathetic pang run through Emily’s own chest.

With this change in angle, Emily is acutely aware of JJ’s thigh against the back of her hand. 

“Are we friends,” JJ asks in a small voice.

A confused grin grows on Emily’s face.

“No.”

JJ looks up sharply, then rolls her eyes. Emily fights to wipe the grin off her face. 

“I don’t think you can catch serial killers with someone and share a bathroom sink with them for over a year without becoming friends,” she says dryly.

The corner of JJ’s mouth rises. 

“Good.”

“Why do you ask?”

JJ shrugs.

“Come on JJ, what’s this about?”

The blonde gestures vaguely at Emily’s face.

“You know you do this thing… when you’re having a really hard time with something...your whole face changes, and your eyes..., you could be a million miles away for a while...and when you come back….”

She winces even as she laughs, her free hand coming up again to her ribs. 

“Well… it’s what I imagine you seem like to people when all they know you as is SSA Prentiss,” JJ says softly.

Emily scoffs, the sound more reflexive than anything.

JJ’s brow wrinkles.

“SSA Prentiss is who I feel I’ve been talking to more and more, lately. And I just…”

Her big blue eyes meet Emily’s, refusing to let her escape.

“Did I do something wrong, say something I shouldn’t have?”

“Nothing,” Emily says.

“Nothing,” JJ repeats, tilting her head to the side, “Emily, it took me getting shot in the chest for you to even really look at me today.”

“Hey that’s not true,” Emily says. 

JJ looks at her doubtfully.

Emily licks her lips, staring at their joined hands. Slowly, she slides her fingers between JJ’s until they’re entwined, using the time to find the right words. 

She can feel JJ’s pulse, quick against her own wrist. 

“I want you to listen to me. The way I am... the way I react...that’s not on you, that’s never going to be on you.”

“Come on, never?”

“Well I will make an exception if you ever push me out of the way of another rifle shot again.”

“Noted,” JJ snorts, but her eyes are still murky. 

She closes them for a moment, shaking her head.

“You know, I don’t have many friends outside of work. Not real friends anyway,” she confesses.

“Why do I find that hard to believe,” Emily asks.

“Cause I look like me,” JJ says easily, much to Emily’s surprise, “And because I smile at a lot of people, and they tend to smile back and give me exactly what I need to make this team functional.” 

JJ shrugs again before continuing.

“But real friends? The team keeps me busy most of the time, so people usually find it easier to move on than to wait for me to start suddenly showing up to game nights.”

Her grip on Emily’s hand seems to grow just a little tighter. 

“So when I’m with you… or with Penelope, or the guys, and we’re not working? I try so hard to just… relax, to be me. You know? And you wanna know what makes it easier?” 

Emily shakes her head.

“Seeing your grumpy ass laugh.”

She pauses, gauging her reaction. 

And even though she thinks it’s been years since this has happened, Emily feels a hot red blush spread out over her face and chest.

“Seeing you really laugh,” JJ continues softly, not commenting on it, “Because it means you feel safe being you… and if you feel safe… then I shouldn’t be so scared of... of not just being what every person in the bureau, in a dive bar, in my life, wants me to be. So don’t tell me I get a pass for making you feel like you can’t laugh, Emily, because... I don’t know if I want to share a hotel room with Agent Prentiss, but I love sharing with you.”

It’s the longest Emily thinks JJ’s let herself speak on what she wants, so Emily waits to see if she’s got anything left to say before speaking again.

“This is how I am,” Emily says softly, thinking of Matthew even as she’s furiously trying to coax the blood away from her face, “I’ve never been a very good friend to the people who’ve been good friends to me.”

The truth is, Emily doesn’t know if she’s built for the kind of friendship JJ wants. An honest one.

“Why do I find that hard to believe,” JJ says, echoing Emily’s earlier words. 

And it’s not that the idea now blaring in her head hasn’t occurred to Emily before. It has. 

In the week since her dreams began, it’s come across her mind so often it’s stopped being entirely surprising. She lets it come, and she let’s it go, and she never pays too much attention to it, because what good would that do?

What good would it do to admit to herself that she’s developed actual feelings for JJ?

“Prentiss? JJ?”

Morgan’s voice from just beyond the drapes startles them both.

“Yep, in here,” Emily calls, voice miraculously steady.

Emily pulls her hand out of JJ’s and back into her lap just as the nurse from before pulls aside the drapes. 

Morgan, Reid, and Gonzalez all peer in together; Gonzalez holds a curious toddler on her hip.

Reid’s eyes widen as he takes in both Emily and JJ’s injured states while Morgan’s jaw clenches at the sight of them, his brows furrowed as he looks from Emily to JJ.

“I’m alright,” Emily says. 

He gives her a terse nod, the relief in his eyes obvious. 

“JJ,” he asks.

“I’m going to be fine,” JJ says, curiously looking from him to the toddler in Gonzalez’s arms. 

Gonzalez’s eyes are a little red when she finally speaks, voice a little hoarse. The boy on her hip touches her face softly and she lets him.

“We found them,” she says, “All of them.”

//////////

Ella del Rio, the last of the missing women, is dead. 

They’d found her body buried just under the painted flower pots back at the cabin. 

As Gonzalez tells them this, a pang runs through Emily’s heart for the dead young woman’s little boy, currently sitting back on the doctor’s lap. 

He watches the five agents around him catch up on the case with curious dark eyes that match his short mop of curly hair. Despite the chaos that’s been his life recently, Emily can’t help but think that he’s an awfully peaceful baby.

JJ insists the other agents all stay and update them on the case, and Gonzalez is able to use her history of working in this particular emergency room to get extra chairs for them to sit in.

The older three of the missing boys, now twelve, nine, and seven respectively, are currently being examined by the ER doctors; their closest living relatives are already en route to the hospital. 

They’d been found reading old comic books in the cabin’s large, chilly basement, a place Morgan suspected they’d rarely been allowed out of since the time of their abductions. Leo had been fast asleep on a floor mat in one corner of the room, one of the older boys next to him, guarding him.

Fortunately, the doctors had quickly deemed him to be perfectly healthy, so Gonzalez was watching over him until his maternal aunt could pick him up. 

They’re not exactly sure why the two unsubs kept the kids alive yet, but Reid has some theories.

“It’s possible that he’s their biological father,“ Reid begins, “Garcia found out that his wife left him and their daughter for one of their employees. A year later, his fourteen year old daughter got pregnant and had a baby boy. Those are two huge stressors involving mothers and children.”

Gonzalez quickly wipes at her eyes with her free hand.

“Lina never told me who Elias’s dad was,” she says quietly, “I don’t think she ever told anybody.” 

There’s a moment of silence before she speaks again.

“Why’d he kill them?”

Emily sits forward carefully in her chair.

“Maybe he created these new family structures as some sort of do-overs,” she says, watching the other woman’s frown grow, “He seduced these young women, and when the kids turned two, that’s when all the hard newborn stuff is mostly over. He swooped in and took them.”

“But why kill Lina,” Gonzalez asks, looking down at Leo, “Why kill any of them?”

She sounds tired, angry, jaded.

Emily knows that any answer they give will never be good enough. 

“Revenge,” Morgan offers, “Against a wife and a daughter he couldn’t control originally, acted out on innocent women he saw as less than human because of their ethnicity. He wanted complete control over how these kids were raised…. He made sure he got it. Roped his daughter into it too… or maybe she did it to avoid getting killed herself.”

Gonzalez closes her eyes tightly, and the men’s gazes drop to the ground.

JJ speaks up. 

“But he can’t hurt anyone else ever again… and that’s because of you, Tereza,” she says softly.

Gonzalez laughs, but the sound is a little empty, and she doesn’t comment further. 

She opens her eyes again as Leo del Rio sits up and whispers something in her ear.

“¿Al baño?” 

He nods. She stands up out of her chair, hoisting him up on her hip. 

“Guess it’s time for a diaper change,” she says, “I know we used to have some extras around here.” 

Morgan stands too, “Guess nature calls for us both little man.”

He holds out an open hand to Leo, who promptly slaps it with a giggle of delight.

Gonzalez, despite her reddened eyes, half-smiles. 

Morgan opens the drapes and they leave together. 

Reid turns his attention to the two women left in the room.

“Well you two look….”

“Careful, Dr. Reid,” Emily says.

He draws his lips together tightly to keep from smiling before speaking again. 

“I’m happy you’re both okay,” he says quietly, tucking his hair behind his ears.

Emily feels a flash of affection for the thin man.

“Us too Spence,” JJ says.

“Do you guys know when you’ll be getting discharged,” he asks.

Emily scoffs. 

“I’m out of here as soon as these pain meds wear off.”

“They say the earliest I’ll be out is tomorrow afternoon. And then…,” JJ trails off. 

“JJ has to drive all the way back to DC,” Emily explains.

Reid’s eyes widen.

“What? Why?”

JJ shoots Emily a look.

“The doctor says my crappy lung could collapse again if I get on a plane before I fully recover.” 

Reid grimaces, “Can you even drive like this?” 

“I’ve... got it handled,” JJ says, averting her eyes and shrugging.

“Care to share your plans with the class,” Emily asks, the corner of her mouth twitching upward.

She would’ve offered to do the driving if she knew she weren’t one arm down for the next couple weeks. 

JJ’s half-smile doesn’t quite meet her eyes, “Nope.”

Reid excuses himself to get them all some water, and then she and JJ are left alone again.

He leaves the drapes open and they can see Morgan and Gonzalez chatting with the red-headed nurse practitioner at the nurse’s station.

“They’d look kinda cute together, wouldn’t they,” JJ says, breaking the silence, and nodding toward Gonzalez and Morgan.

Emily bites her lip, watching how the redheaded nurse, who’d been the epitome of composure earlier when talking to her, blushes at something Gonzalez says. The doctor, amazingly, blushes as well.

“You know,” Emily murmurs, “Somehow, I don’t think Morgan is her type.”

JJ’s brow furrows, watching the scene before them a little more closely, then her blue eyes widen.

“Oh.”

Emily chuckles. 

“That a problem, JJ?”

And maybe her heart pounds a little harder as she waits for JJ to respond.

“No! God. No, never.” 

Not obviously sagging with relief is difficult.

And then Gonzalez and Morgan are back, smirking about something they choose not to share with the rest of them.

Reid comes in shortly after, holding many water bottles precariously in his arms. 

Emily waves at Leo, who waves back shyly. 

He makes like he wants to be put down and walks toward Emily in that mildly unsteady way toddlers do, and she bends forward to catch his little hand, ignoring the sharp pain in her shoulder.

“Que tal Leo,” she asks.

What’s up?

He brightens immediately.

“What’s your name,” he asks. 

“I’m Emily,” she says, making sure to look him in the eyes.

“Do you speak Spanish?”

“Yes.”

“English too?”

“Yes,” Emily says, smiling, “English too.” 

His dark eyes are on her bandaged shoulder.

“Duele,” he asks.

Does it hurt?

“Si,” Emily says softly, “Pero no tanto.”

Yes, but not so much….

The whole room watches as he gestures that he’d like to climb onto her lap. 

Gonzalez steps forward and helps him up, raising an impressed eyebrow at Emily once he’s settled. Emily winks at her, and the doctor’s hand lingers on Emily’s good shoulder for just a second before she sits back in her chair. 

Out of the corner of her eye, JJ’s gone very still.

Leo looks into Emily’s eyes for a moment as she steadies him with her good arm.

“You’re sad,” he whispers.

She considers it. 

“A little,” she whispers back, thinking of his mother.

Then he raises a little hand and rests it softly on her bandaged shoulder. 

Emily tilts her head at him, mildly amused and listening as he murmurs a few phrases in Spanish, something about frogs feeling better in the morning. Then he somberly draws his hand back into his lap. 

He looks over at JJ, whose wide blue eyes, Emily realizes, are trained only on her. She can’t read their expression.

“What’s her name?”

“Jennifer,” Emily says, reluctantly looking back down at the little boy. 

“But my friends can call me JJ,” JJ says.

Leo looks at her shyly.

“I think you can call her JJ,” Emily whispers.

He looks at JJ, checking to see if it’s true.

She nods, her hand to her ribs as she struggles not to giggle.

“Is JJ sad too,” he whispers loudly. 

Emily’s mouth falls open for a moment; she brushes his bangs out of his eyes, then looks at JJ, who for a moment, looks pained. The expression is gone the next instant, replaced with a fathomless, even look that JJ uses in police departments.

They really are a lot alike, Emily thinks, the mere thought making the ache in her shoulder grow only more pronounced. 

“You know,” she whispers, “I really don’t know.” 

/////////

Emily doesn’t remember dozing off, only knows that when she wakes up, the dingy round clock hanging in the room reads four, her neck is cramping from falling asleep seated, and she and JJ are the only one’s left in the hospital room.

She rises slowly, stiffly from the chair and stretches as best she can, rolling her neck and rubbing her eyes.

JJ glances up from her PDA as she does and smiles a little.

“You’re up.” 

“Tragically,” Emily jokes.

“Gonzalez decided to drive her godson to his grandmother’s house herself. She’ll be back later.”

Emily hums. 

All the other boys had been picked up by stunned relatives. Pushed out of their hellish reality and into a new, foggy one. Emily knows it’ll be a long road for all those families to heal. A part of her wonders if they ever truly will. 

After emerging from surgery, their male unsub had unfortunately slipped into a coma. 

Hotch and Rossi stepped in at around noon to check up on them, and to inform them that the unsub’s daughter fairly quickly invoked her right to a lawyer. 

Truthfully, Emily has no idea how a case against them is going to look like. And it fucking sucks. 

Emily’d been discharged at around noon, but she’d stuck around for JJ, Gonzalez, and the boys.The guys had also hung around in JJ’s room until about an hour ago when they’d headed back to the hotel for dinner and to pack for wheels up first thing in the morning. 

“Are you really going to drive back to DC all by yourself,” she asks.

JJ glances at the clock and shakes her head, chuckling

“No. No. That would be crazy.”

She looks like she’s torn between saying more and staying quiet. 

“Maybe I should go,” Emily says, “Change into less bloody clothes.”

JJ nods, and again glances at the clock.

Emily raises her hand to open the drapes then makes a decision. She looks over her shoulder; JJ is watching her.

“Uh… What you said earlier… about wanting to share a hotel room with Emily and not Agent Prentiss….”

She stops, glancing down at her boots before haltingly looking back at JJ.

“When I was growing up, I could pinpoint the exact moment someone became interested in being nice to me. It was when they found out what my last name was. Who my mom was. And then….”

She sighs.

“It didn’t matter what I wanted…. The person they always expected was Ambassador Prentiss’s daughter. It’s how it’s always been. And I guess I’ve kinda gotten used to it. So thanks, I guess… for caring about Emily… me.” 

”It’s easy,” JJ murmurs, then seems to be on the verge of saying more when they hear footsteps on the other side of the drapes that stop just outside the room.

She can hear the nurse from earlier talking to a man with a strange accent.

“Emily,” JJ says, and for some reason it sounds like a plea.

Emily steps back just as the drapes are pulled open.

She knows she’s seen the man before and it takes a few seconds before she recognizes him as that detective who’d flirted with JJ back in New Orleans all those months ago.

“Hi,” he says, smiling a little at her and extending his hand out, “Agent Prentiss. It’s good to see you again.”

Dazed, she takes it and gives it a firm shake with her bad arm. The pain makes her nauseous. 

“Hi,” she says back.

She feels a little bad for not remembering his name. 

His sleepy looking eyes slide over to JJ, and an expression of urgent concern dawns on his face. It’s then that she notices the duffel bag on his shoulder. 

Very slowly, Emily turns around as he moves past her and easily sits on the edge of JJ’s bed, taking one of her hands between his own and pulling it up to his lips to kiss with relief.

Emily’s heart stutters.

“Em, you remember Detective William LaMontagne Jr., from that case we had down in New Orleans.”

“I remember,” Emily says quietly, “So you’re going to be helping get JJ back home?” 

Home. 

“I am,” he says, “Took the first flight to Tucson I could get my hands on. Rented the car at the airport. It smells like the last guy who had it smoked a lot of cigarettes and had a couple cats, but it drives alright.” 

“Good,” Emily says faintly, “That’s good. I’m glad.” 

JJ’s searching her face, and her own falls for just a moment at the hurt, however quickly obscured, that she must find there.

“Are you alright,” Detective LaMontagne asks, moving to stand up and God, steady her?

“I’m fine,” Emily says, backing away from his touch, “Surprisingly, getting shot really takes it out of you.” 

Will laughs. 

“Jennifer talks about you a lot,” he says, “Says you’d rather die than admit you’re hurting.”

And that hurts more than anything.

“JJ’s never mentioned you before,” Emily says before she can stop herself.

JJ‘s mouth opens, and the detective nods, like it’s no surprise. 

“Wanted to keep us a total secret for the first three months at least. Now it’s been six, and I guess the world chose for us. Right?”

“Yeah,” JJ says quietly.

Six months. 

And even though JJ’s asked her to not hide so much, Emily can’t help it.

She’s sure if the two lovers on the bed before her are seeing anyone, in that moment, it’s SSA Prentiss.

“Well it was nice seeing you again,” she hears herself say as she pulls open the drapes with her good arm, “Take good care of her for us…. we’d be….”

She clears her throat before finishing and leaving them to head straight for the exit.

“We’d be lost without her.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Three things:
> 
> 1\. Sorry, y’all did sign on for angst.  
> 2\. The reasons this update is both long and delayed is because I‘m a medical student, so my day job is pretty demanding. But! I adore writing this when I have the time, so don’t think I’ve abandoned the story if the time between updates is a little long.  
> 3\. Thank you all so much for your kind comments and for reading!
> 
> I’m @rita-farraway on tumblr if y’all are on there and wanna reach out!


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